Historical Commission’s Monthly Tales of Our Town
July’s Minute History features the West Newbury Cadet Band, which from 1894 to around 1905 enlivened the occasion—be it a summer’s Sunday school outing or a winter concert. Comprised primarily of a core group of brass, woodwind, and drum players from West Newbury, the band also included an occasional violin or banjo as well as musicians from neighboring towns. A for-fee venture of some 18 to 25 fellows whose day jobs included farming and shoemaking, the band gave concerts in Town Hall and on the Training Field. It sponsored masquerade balls in winter and an annual trip up and down river on the steamer Merrimac. It celebrated Memorial Days and the 4th of July, and marched in many a parade. One of the band’s final reported engagements occurred in October 1905, when it joined friends and family serenading First Parish newlyweds. Other bands came and went thereafter, but none the same as the West Newbury Cadet Band.
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